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Invaders from the left coast stormed our nation’s capital on Saturday, and while they didn’t exactly burn down the house and make off with the silver, they did return with three points. It was a good weekend to be a Portland soccer fan.
The official watch party at Grand Central was well attended.
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The stay-at-home Thorns were joined by Vytas in cheering for their comrades.
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The Numbers
Nationally, attendance was slightly below average since there was no Portland home match. The Spirit had 3,284 fans, their lowest gate of the season although they are still up almost 18% over last year. Seattle hosted Chicago in front of 3,597 which is almost exactly their average after three matches and a 14% improvement over 2017. Sky Blue got the weekend’s black eye, drawing only 1,923 for their match with North Carolina. The Jersey Girls are not selling well, with attendance down 44%. The highlight was the Utah match versus Houston which brought 8,323 fans to Rio Tinto , which is about a thousand better than the last two matches. Their season average is 10,132, which is the best ever for any NWSL team not called the Portland Thorns.
The league total is now up 17.6% over 2017, which is a three-point decline from last week. But it’s still improvement.
The Salt Lake-Houston match was Lifetime’s Game of the Week. Its ratings were the season’s best by far, coming in at number 120 of Saturday’s top 150 cable shows. The audience was 222,000 - a dramatic jump of almost 3x from the prior few weeks! Perhaps Lifetime is doing some extra marketing work or had a really strong lead-in to this match. Whatever the cause, please may we have some more?
Up Next
Providence Park will be the site for our next match as we host the Utah Royals. Their supporters group is more than welcome at our tailgate. The match is Friday at 7:30 pm and will be shown on GO90 for those who can’t come in person. The gates will open at 6:00 pm.
The Riveters are collecting shelf-stable convenience food items for NW Impact in aid of the homeless and people temporarily displaced. They need things that are easy to open and don’t require cooking. Please bring your donation to the Fanladen (corner of 17th and Alder) before the match.
Onward Rose City!